Vantage Point: Not Very Sharp

[ArsonCuff]

Vantage Point was directed by Pete Travis and written by Barry Levy. It stars Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whittaker, Sigourney Weaver, and William Hurt. The story is about an assassination attempt on the President of the United States Of America as shown from the viewpoints of several different people there. Amongst these witnesses is of course several secret service agents, who race to figure out who pulled the trigger.

The first I ever heard of Vantage Point was its movie trailer debut prepping audiences for its theatrical run and quite frankly whomever cut that trailer did a fine job indeed. The movie trailer took what looked like a less than interesting concept and highlighted the action set pieces to some techno-like infused music and made it enticing. Well, not enticing enough for me to fork over cash to see it on the big screen but enough to check it out on DVD immediately upon release. Hopefully this review serves as a warning for those who have not made an immediate trip to the rental store.

This movie boiled down is exactly the gimmick it advertises itself as. The movie has around an hour and a half run time and within that ninety minutes you get loads of filler. The assassination attempt is replayed many times over so that you can see it through the eyes of another individual at the scene and holding a different piece of the puzzle kept hidden from you the viewer due to the previous scene cutting off. Yep, you keep getting rewound back through time and starting over; again and again. This non-linear style of telling the story is only necessary because there really isn't a story at all. Literally the movie falls empty and void of explanations for any of the whys involved with what is going down and without any character depth, unless you want to count some brief flashback footage for Quaid's character involving his past instance of catching bullets. The action is hampered by editing to other view points and seeing the same clips over and over again is lame. The entire opening sequence as shown through news cameras was less than exciting and the ending is a convenient bow on the non-existent plot, wrapped around a visually decent set piece, but completely silly and an insult to anyone actually expecting this movie to have some sort of smart twist to it.

I would not recommend this as mindless entertainment even because form my personal viewpoint the gimmick reigned above all else as far as entertainment value goes and I don't like obvious and leaned upon gimmicks. I got annoyed and I got bored.

[stinkingbob]

What a shame. I didn't get a chance to this on the big screen, but from watching the previews, its looked intriguing. I think that the previews gave away too much (president was supposedly shot, but the president really didn't die. Did he fake his own death?). I will rent it nonetheless when it is available on dvd.

[Sheridan Passell]

Watched this on dvd yesterday. I actually thought it was a very entertaining 90 minutes. The first scene is badly acted but don't be put off, it picks up.